


All Time Love

by trepidatingboarfetus



Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:07:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26851915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trepidatingboarfetus/pseuds/trepidatingboarfetus
Summary: Trevor is tired of everyone changing around him and also tired of being alone. But he's not as alone as he thinks he is.
Relationships: Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	All Time Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thenomansland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenomansland/gifts).



> My dearest friend drew me something to cheer me up, and how am I supposed to repay that? Why, with this of course! I wish I could do more! Just look at this lovely artwork that goes with it!
> 
> https://thenoman-sland.tumblr.com/post/631071310627438592/i-dont-have-much-to-post-because-most-of-what
> 
> All Time Love is a song by Will Young and very much the theme for this story. :3

How he ended up walking around the beaches of Chumash was beyond him, but Michael’s comments about him being a proto-hipster pushed into his head, memories unasked for but not entirely unwanted. He smiled fondly at them as he threw rocks into the tide as it licked at his heels. 

It had been a while since he’d seen anyone besides Chef, Wade, and Ron, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t appreciate them as those sad bastards had been loyal to him for a while now -- especially Ron and Chef -- but Chef had his own life outside of whatever he needed him to do for TP Enterprises...or was it _Conglomerate_ today? Wade was a good kid but talking to him was like watching paint dry, and everyone loved a good yes man, but Ron had no fucking backbone, and his conspiracy theories could drag on and on for days to the point of nausea. 

He didn’t want to bother the kid. Frank was busy with his own businesses he had going, trying to turn an honest buck. Plus, he had hinted around that he was seeing someone new, and it didn’t take too many guesses to figure out that _someone new_ was a certain blond daughter Frank had already had his eyes on. He had wondered how those two had managed to not give Mikey a fucking stroke when they’d dropped that bombshell. 

_Mikey…._

He hadn’t seen him in a while either. The last he’d heard, Jimmy had steady work and had found himself a studio apartment in a cheaper part of town that wasn’t a complete shithole -- and if he had to guess, Michael was probably helping to pay for still because he wouldn’t put it past him to help his kids out of a jam -- and Amanda and Michael were trying to rekindle whatever the fuck it was they thought they’d managed to have once upon a time. 

_Well…well, good for him_ , he thought to himself sourly. And here he stood, casting rocks at the mighty ocean like some sort of wigged out balding version of Peter Pan. With no one. 

No, he _had_ someone, but that someone _had_ someone. 

Of course, he’d never gone out of his way at any length to tell Michael that he actually loved him. Like really loved him. The kind of love that Michael fawned over in his damn black and white classics. Fucking was one thing, sex was _hot_ , but actually putting himself out there, stripping himself completely, emotions laid bare? He could do nude, but he couldn’t do _naked_. 

He’d been taught to never show one iota of emotion. His father had beaten the snot out of him each time he’d tried, his mother had eventually screamed and laughed, pointed fingers alongside his brother...fragile emotions were bad. The weak were destroyed in his family. 

But then Mikey had come into the picture, and when he’d fired that damn flare gun, it’s like he’d also pierced the wall he had hidden those weak-ass emotions behind, and it had been crumbling slowly ever since.

What would that simpering asshole say to Trevor if he told him that he couldn’t get him out of his head, that he went to bed and had silly dreams about them together, and in those dreams, he was in a wedding dress dancing through fields of wildflowers with church bells ringing even though neither were exactly church material, but they were always so young and forever beautiful...would he laugh? Because it was Trevor, and there was no craziness, no fucking guns, no drugs, no cannibalism...none of the familiar to fall back on. 

Yeah, it even seemed crazy to him some days. He’d given Michael so much fucking grief for getting old and wanting out of the game, but really...he envied him. He wanted that for himself, but he didn’t have the person he wanted it with, and he was sure he never would. 

His eyes flicked back to his phone, and he sighed drastically. Did he dare call the happy couple? Part of him was nervous that Michael would give him shit for bothering him like in the old days, and he didn’t want to end the day on a low. 

Another part of him was nervous like a schoolgirl calling her crush, and he tried to swallow that down. _Jesus Christ, it’s just Mikey_. 

It took four rings, and just as Trevor was about to hang up, someone answered angrily, almost out of breath, “Hello??” And for a minute, his voice was stuck in his throat. Christ, had he interrupted them fucking? The thought bubbled in his stomach, and it took a lot of effort to keep from vomiting it out along with all of the Dusche Gold he’d just drunk. “For fuck’s sakes, Trevor, I can read caller ID, ya know. What is it?”

He stomped down on his foot in hopes of getting his voice unstuck. “Ahhhh...I...did I interrupt something?”

Michael’s snorts came through the other end as plain as day, and Trevor could almost see him rolling his eyes. “Oh, everything’s just wonderful here. Hey, now that I think about it, I could use a fucking drink. How about it?”

Trevor looked down at himself and then stared back out at the sea. Oh Jesus, he hadn’t thought this through too much. He’d just wanted to hear a voice, _maybe_ go out with anyone other than the person haunting his every fucking thought…

No, he was kidding himself. He’d seen this crisp antique white lace dress in that bohemian thrift shop, and it had screamed out to him like it was straight out of a fantasy. He’d squealed and worn that fucker out of the shop, and no one had batted an eyelash because, well, it was _Chumash_. One of the few perks of the fucking place. So what if Mikey was right.

Oh God, Mikey. He needed to give an answer.

“Uh, sure. Sure, pal. Um, I’m over in Chumash --”

“Hey! I know of a place down there if you’ll wait outside of it for me,” Michael yammered on enthusiastically while there were sounds of shit crashing in the background behind him, along with loud feminine cursing. Someone wasn’t a happy camper. “Swear it won’t take me that long to get down there. It’s called Breakfast At Tiffany’s.”

He knew the place but nearly died laughing -- from both fright _and_ delight -- when he responded sarcastically, “Really? You and those damn movies.”

“Shut up and just be waiting.” And then the line went dead. The phone was still cradled to his ear like it was trying to eke out as much of Michael’s voice as it could still get, but it just wasn’t possible so he ended the call with a long sigh. 

He took another look at himself in the storefront glass, twisting and turning, wondering what was going to greet him at the other end of this get-together. He knew his old friend had seen him in all manner of shit, and he’d probably be more shocked just to see him in clean, untattered threads for once, but his nerves grated on him, and he desperately wanted to bite his nails. 

Nono _no_ , Wade had slaved over his nails, _goddamn it_ , and he wasn’t about to fuck up Wade’s effort. 

He had to admit that if only he hadn’t lost a good amount of his hair due to stress, drugs, and good old genetics, he’d be gorgeous in this number. From the back, with this little flowery cardigan over it, he didn’t even look like himself that much. In the receding light, he could be mistaken for someone else. 

As he walked over to Tiffany’s, he chuckled again and wondered if Mikey had any fucking clue he’d asked to meet up at a gay bar. He wagered he didn’t and had only known about the place due to his damn obsession with Audrey Hepburn movies. 

* * *

He’d only had to wait about an extra twenty minutes or so because Michael had apparently poured on the speed all the way over, but as how all things went in their misbegotten lives, Michael couldn’t figure out where he was because it was dark, the damned old idiot apparently really needed glasses to see at night these days, he was more than a little too vain about it, and so he had started a barrage of texts, trying to figure out where Trevor was. 

But Trevor knew exactly where he was. He’d watched him pull in and couldn’t form a single sentence together to yell at him because he was busy staring at him in his dark grey chinos and some black sweater from Ponsonbys. Anxious sweat slid down the back of his neck, cooling the small spans of skin on his back that remained untouched by clothes as he watched him coming closer and closer.

“Excuse me, miss, have you seen my--”

Trevor’s phone dinged again, and he looked at it like the traitorous piece of shit that it was before swallowing and looking up at Michael with an uneasy smile on his face. “Hey.”

Michael took another look at him, closed his eyes, and then looked again. “Trevor??”

He fought hard within himself to not beat the look off of Michael’s face as he stared at him, that it was _OK_ , that he’d wasn’t used to maybe this, that things could be new and OK, even though everything in him that was old and back then and very much the boy he’d been raised was yelling at him to destroy, hit, kick, punch, _fuck anyone who stands in the way_. “Is...is something wrong, Michael?” he asked, carefully schooling the emotional war on his face. 

Michael put his hand behind his head and laughed. “Nah, I’m just not used to seeing you so dolled up. It feels a little like a date.”

Trevor’s mood was starting to fly south. Why had he bothered to say _sure_ or wear this or even call? He’d been better off staying with his dreams, a much safer place. “Oh.”

Michael clapped him on the back and brought him close. “Not like I couldn’t use one. Shit, I can’t remember what one feels like,” he mumbled a little bitterly.

Something about that made Trevor’s ears perk up, and he remembered the phone call’s background antics. “Trouble in paradise?”

Michael snorted derisively. “You could say that.” 

They walked in and waited to be seated. Trevor watched as Michael typed out a text in a furious manner before pressing send and laughing at his phone, and while it was the most ridiculous fucking thing to behold, it was also the most beautiful thing to see too. 

He’d missed this. He missed out on nine years of this.

It didn’t raise his ire anymore as it formerly had. Instead, it just made him so depressed to realize that he had missed all these little bits and pieces. He’d missed watching the kids grow up, he’d missed each holiday, he’d missed seeing each wrinkle, each crease, each laugh line, the forming widow’s peaks...and meanwhile his old friend had just grown more handsome, but he’d never seen the years between.

He sighed as they looked at their menus but laughed gently as he caught Michael at his phone again, typing away. If they’d been together over these past nine years, how much more could they have accomplished? Or would they still have grown apart? Or would _he_ be dead? He knew he overdid it sometimes...he really tried not to, but sometimes he just didn’t want to feel anything anymore.

Or would Michael really be dead?

He didn’t even want to consider that. This past year sometimes still felt like a dream he was waiting to wake up from and that his beloved Michael Townley was still dead in North Yankton, but he was slowly starting to get over that.

Even now, he reached out to graze Michael’s hand just to reassure himself that he wasn’t a figment of his imagination, causing the other man to laugh. “What is it?”

He fought the urge to snap and go straight back his normal responses, swallowed them back down into the pit of his stomach where they belonged, and let his friend see the flushed look on his face as he embarrassedly admitted, “I...I had to make sure you were here. Sometimes I have bad dreams….ya know.”

Michael’s face flashed back and forth between crestfallen to his own set of painfully dreadful realizations. “Oh. Goddamn, T, I’m sorry. I don’t think sorry is ever going to be enough to fix it sometimes.”

Trevor waved him off and tried to get their waiter’s attention so they could at least get some liquor in themselves before he embarrassed the both of them even further. After their orders were placed, he broached the subject of the phone call again. “So...what the fuck is going on over at _Castillo del Paraíso_? It sounds like Amanda was...uh, exorcising her demons?” 

Michael grimaced and then chuckled nervously. “Yeah, exorcising them all over the fucking house, over my favorite shit.” He sighed and looked down at the table, finding the tablecloth pattern interesting, tracing it with his fingers. “We tried again, T, and failed. Again. I want to feel something, but...I can’t. With the kids grown and out of the house, we just realized that all we ever had in common were the goddamn kids in the first place.” The waiter arrived with the first round of whiskey sours, and Michael asked for two more, neat, before going on. “OK, you can yell at me and laugh. I wasted my life with her. I really thought we had something, but I had my head full of those old movies.” He took a sip and waited. 

And Trevor wanted to say something. Hot _damn_ , did he want to, but it still wouldn’t equal what he really wanted to say, so he shrugged his shoulders and downed half of his drink for good measure. “What do you want me to say? You put your heart out there like every other desperate sucker, so what. You tried. At least you _tried_ ,” he sighed into his glass. “You could be me.”

“How’s that?”

“Miserable and alone,” Trevor muttered from behind his menu. 

Michael pulled down his menu a bit to look him in the eyes. The expression on his face was one of bewilderment. “ _You_?? Miserable and alone?? Aren’t you living it up, balls to the wall?” 

Trevor threw the menu back down and gestured at himself. “Do I look like I’m living it up right now??”

Michael stared at him again, and the way he did made Trevor blush in places he didn’t think he could blush in. “Actually, I think you look nice.” He cleared his throat. “If that’s OK to say.”

If it were possible to leave the Earth without a fucking plane, Trevor Philips was doing it right now. He was somewhere up in the clouds, spinning around them and making his way for the moon before coming back down. He didn’t think it was possible to feel so fucking giddy beyond the times his mother would actually say a kind word and make him feel like a good boy. 

So when he came crashing back down into himself, he wanted to play it cool, but he was such a jumbled mess of shit that all that would come out was, “Please say it again, Mikey.”

“What? That you look nice?” Michael looked at him oddly. 

He sighed contentedly and leaned back against his chair, sipping on his drink instead of gulping it now. “This is nice.”

His friend glared at him and placed his hands in front of him, twisting them worriedly. “OK...who the fuck are you, and what have you done to Trevor?” He shook his head and tried again. “Or what the fuck are you on? You’re creeping me the hell out.”

And there it was, the suggestion that he had to be on drugs to act differently. He wanted to get pissed off, knock the fucking table over, scream to the heavens, shoot anyone who dared to look at him, but he didn’t have anything on him besides his wallet, unfortunately, and it was exhausting. It was all goddamn exhausting.

“I’m not on anything right now,” he clarified sullenly, playing with the melting ice cubes in his drink. “I’m actually trying to cut back--”

“That’s great!”

“I wasn’t finished, dammit!” he stared at the table, trying to find something to focus on so his nerves wouldn’t make him puke. Fuck, he’d known there was always a reason behind doing the damn shit in the first place. “Look, just let me talk, OK? I...I’m tired, OK? Everyone’s changing, and I’m the only one who’s stuck behind. I thought I was fine with it, but I’m not. I’ve got more money than I’ll ever need in my life, and I don’t know what to do with it.” He looked Michael square in the eyes and swallowed his heart back down. “I’d always thought that when I’d gotten to this point that it would be you and me standing together so I wouldn’t be alone.”

The waiter came by to collect their drinks and gave Michael his third whiskey sour which he started on, gulping it down. “But you _aren’t_ alone. You’ve got me, Frank, you’ve got your crazy friends in Sandy Shores--”

Trevor looked at Michael and pondered briefly if he was really as dense as a moose turd or if he was that way on purpose. “Great, good job, you’ve listed _friends_ , Mikey. I’m not talking about friends.”

Michael’s cheeks reddened slightly. “Oh...wait! Y-y-you...are you implying you’d thought...you and me??”

“No...yes...I don’t know!” he sputtered anxiously. “I’m not drunk or fucked up enough for this conversation, I guess, dammit! Fuck!” Then he laughed at himself and tossed back the rest of his drink before he started on his fourth. “I don’t even know why I’m bothering to torture myself like this except I guess since there’s no one else around to do it, someone has to, so it might as well be me! Shit fuck!”

Michael chuckled and whispered something in the waiter’s ear before handing him some cash. That little action didn’t go unnoticed by Trevor, and if his mood wasn’t already shitty enough, it was definitely down in the depths of hell after that. _Sure_ , he could flirt with the fucking sexy male waiters, but _fuck_ Trevor’s feelings! Same old shit. 

While Trevor nursed his fourth drink somewhat irritably, the waiter came back with a bottle of Masterson’s Rye and handed it off to Michael who poured himself a glass and nudged Trevor who eyed the bottle like it was the finest spun gold as he downed the rest of his drink. “Hit me, Mikey.”

“OK, but you have to answer some questions.”

Trevor looked at him cautiously as he handed him his glass. “OK, but you have to answer some too. Truthfully.”

Michael nodded. “Truthfully.” He guzzled until one-third of his glass was gone and coughed. “How long?”

“How long what?” He took a big gulp and relaxed. Oh man…he wasn’t the biggest whiskey person on the planet, but that burned so good, and he needed liquid courage.

“How long have you harbored this little secret? I just thought you were just talking out of your ass.” 

With the liquor flowing through him now, it became easier to talk freely, away from the worry and pressure that Michael would laugh in his face. Tonight, it was either all or nothing. He didn’t want to focus on what would happen if Michael did exactly that, but he _knew_ his friend, he swore he did. Michael Townley, the _real_ Michael Townley, wouldn’t do that to his friends, would he? He’d sooner die. 

“Mikey, sweetie, you have no idea. I say shit all of the time to people, but sometimes I’m blowing smoke out of my ass, sometimes it’s to scare the shit out of people who _need_ to be scared, sometimes it’s about getting off, but with you,” he said while gazing deeply into Michael’s eyes, noting affectionately that they were the same color as the seawater that had lapped at his ankles earlier, “with you, it always been about love.” He giggled coquettishly into his hands. “I’ve known I was in love with you since we were at least 21, if not 20.”

Michael’s glass slipped from his hand and fell to the table with a loud bang and crash. He was still in shock while waiters rushed in to clean up the mess and give him another glass. He nodded and thanked them, gave half-hearted apologies before sending them back on their way and pouring himself another drink. “Jesus Christ.”

Trevor sucked in a breath, almost afraid to speak, but dared anyway. “You...you hate me now, right?” he asked in the smallest voice he could muster.

Michael took a long drink before answering. “What? No, I just don’t understand why you waited so long to say something. I mean, why now?”

Trevor looked back down at the ground, trying to focus on anything other than the person across from him. Anything to keep from crying. “Because of the reaction I’m getting now. Why do you think, Michael? You’re a guy. I’m a guy. I can put on this gorgeous dress, but at the end of the day, I’m...I’m….” He couldn’t finish the words rolling around viciously in his head. _At the end of the day, I’m just some ugly guy._

“Trevor,” Michael spoke softly, grabbing his hand, and that commanded Trevor’s attention back from the floor, “it’s fine. I just wish you’d said something sooner because a lot of shit makes sense, actually.”

“What makes sense?”

Michael laughed. “Why a lot of shit between you and Amanda seemed to be a competition to hop on my dick.” Then he really roared with laughter, and it was so infectious, Trevor joined in. “She really was jealous of any time we spent together. We even had an argument one time, and she asked me point blank if I was fucking around with you.”

Trevor hesitated at first considering that subject, and then decided to switch gears and bring up Amanda again. “So are you sure you guys are done for good? I think you’ve already said that once or twice now, and that’s just since you’ve been back in my life, so how many fucking times did that come up over the years?”

“Oh no,” Michael seethed. “That’s definitely done. Over the years, we stayed together for the kids, but the kids are grown and have moved on. And Mandy couldn’t keep it in her yoga pants any longer. Obviously, I’m no longer good enough or I was never good enough...who knows,” he muttered dejectedly, playing with the rim of his glass. 

Trevor imagined that rim being another kind of rim and Michael being the one toying with it, and he had to grab the table to stabilize himself. “She needs her fucking eyes checked. And who do you think you are disrespecting Michael Townley like that? He’s always been good enough and...and he always will be.” He took a drink quickly to hide his face. 

Michael smiled sweetly at him. “Well, if Trevor Philips is changing, then I like the new Trevor Philips a whole lot, but I think I’ve kind of always had a soft spot for the bastard.”

Trevor choked on his drink, coughing nearly half to death. Had he heard that right? Was this a dream? “P-pinch me, Michael.”

Michael frowned at him. “What, why?”

“Am I dreaming? Did I pass out?” He grabbed Michael’s hands and looked at him in desperation. “Did you really just say--”

Michael nodded and grinned back at him. “I didn’t stutter, pal. You said everyone is changing, and to that, I say everyone else is doing it, so why can’t we?”

Trevor blinked. “Did...did you just quote me some goddamn Dolores O’Riordan?”

“The one and only, T.” He clinked his glass against Trevor’s, and his eyes twinkled merrily like they held a secret. “Never forgot you were a Cranberries fan way back when.”

Trevor put his hand against his heart and took a deep breath. It was like he was back at the ocean and could hear the water rushing in and out. Everyone was suddenly too loud, everything was too hot, his heart fluttered too much, and he felt like he couldn’t get enough air. 

And it was way worse when Michael’s face was near. 

“What’s wrong with me?” he croaked miserably. 

Michael placed quite a number of bills on the table -- probably way more than he really needed to, Trevor noted -- and pulled his friend to his feet. “C’mon, let’s get you some air. I think you’re having a panic attack.”

“Oh,” he laughed hollowly, allowing himself to be dragged out the door. “It’s been a long time. I usually don’t have to worry about those.”

Michael sat him back on the bench outside the door to the bar and slid in next to him, rubbing his back in soothing circles. Trevor tried not to focus on that hand because it just made the panic worse, but it was hard not to shiver from his touch. 

He could still remember the few times before Amanda had come along when they’d had only each other for comfort on those dreary nights, but he trusted that Michael couldn’t remember a single thing. They’d never gotten any further than drunken handjobs and one blowjob from Trevor that still kept him awake at night decades later, but it was somewhere around that point where he’d known it was more than just fucking around and having fun. 

He’d fallen in love with his best friend, so he’d just stopped suddenly, and then not long after, Amanda had come slithering around the stripper pole anyway. 

And now, just thinking about Michael and being near him was forcing some sort of fucked up response in him again, something akin to panic. 

“T, I wanna know, and you can hit me or yell at me or what the fuck ever you want, but I need to know,” Michael asked lowly, his hands running through his hair in distress, “why do you do so much ice? I’m glad to know you’re cutting back, but this is something that’s been bothering me.” His eyes dropped to the ground. “I know it’s not like you weren’t already doing some back in the old days, and we all did shit, but when did it get so bad?”

Michael asked it like a man who already knew the answer but was dreading hearing it.

Trevor put his head between his legs and tried to catch his breath while hoping that his heart would stop hammering any fucking minute. He felt like he’d pushed the limit and smoked a few eight-balls all at once. But he _had_ promised the fucking truth, and he was going to deliver every horrible bit of it, even if it killed him. “When I thought you were dead.” 

And he began to tell Michael about how he could still remember the pain as if it were still fresh, heard the voices and gunshots ringing out in his head, Mikey telling him to run, that he was bleeding out, and then he could hear his own screams...the non-stop screaming that had come for days, and the tears that had come for even longer after that. He hadn’t wanted to eat or drink. He actually still owed Lester some sort of apology because if not for Lester, he wouldn’t even be amongst the living. Lester had cared enough about him with what had happened and recognized what he had been going through then, so he’d helped him get the fuck out of town to start somewhere fresh where there were no lasting memories of Michael Townley. 

But what Les hadn’t figured on was that Trevor’s mind would be his own undoing. And so when he’d settled in Sandy Shores, he’d stumbled across the first ice dealer he could find which had happened to be one of The Lost, and he had bought himself enough, preparing to go down in a blaze of glory. 

And it never happened. Instead, he’d found out that the more he smoked, the more he could dull the pain and just muddle through enough to concentrate on other bullshit, but as with any medicine, the older he got, the more he needed to feel better.

“And I’m not stupid, Michael. I _do_ care. There’s this part of me that cares even when I say I don’t give a fuck. I...I feel like a fucking idiot when I think about some of the shit I’ve done in front of Tracey and Jim when they were just little kids, but I didn’t care at the time because I was...I was….” His gaze flickered to a moth that danced along the streetlamp above them. “I was hurting and didn’t care.”

Michael put an arm around him and pulled him toward him in an embrace. “T, I...I kinda had an idea that it had to be bad, I’ll admit, but I guess I needed to hear it from you to make it real, too.” He sighed. “Sometimes I want to take it all back, but then I also know that we wouldn’t be where we are right now if shit hadn’t happened for a reason. There’d be no Franklin--”

“I’m sure Tracey would be heartbroken.”

“Wiseass!” Michael laughed and pulled him closer, sending Trevor’s senses on fire. “Just think about all of the stuff we’d be missing out on now! We’ve done shit we’d only dreamed of back then.”

His heart kept pounding harder and harder listening to Michael go on and on, and being this close to him, he couldn’t take it any longer. Rejection be damned, he whispered, “I don’t want this all to myself though. I want to share it with _you_ , Mikey.”

His oldest, dearest friend looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights for a moment, then shook his head, and stood up, extending his hand. “C’mon, let’s go somewhere else.”

Trevor yanked back at him, confused. “But didn’t you _hear_ me? I said--”

Michael barely acknowledged him as if he were trying to appease a child and grabbed Trevor’s hand again who was frowning at him in exasperation. “Yeah, yeah, _c’mon_.”

They got into Michael’s Tailgater with the owner taking off for parts unknown and his occupant looking on in uncertainty and fiddling with the radio. He’d meant to put it on something to calm his nerves, but when he hit some sort of oldies station for Latin music, Michael stilled his hand because it was playing something he claimed he knew.

“Bésame Mucho! Trev, hey, leave it there, will ya?” 

Trevor huffed, but he knew the song. It was hard to _not_ know the song living down this way after so many years or to know the meaning behind it with his rudimentary Spanish skills. He was really beginning to think Michael enjoyed torturing the fuck out of him or maybe the universe did.

And he especially thought that after Michael took his hand in his and began to sing it to him.

“ _Bésame_ _, bésame mucho, que tengo miedo a perderte...perderte después._ ”

It sounded like the most horrible bunch of caterwauling that Trevor had ever had the displeasure of hearing, and part of him wanted to gag dramatically, but he also wanted to giggle delightedly because Michael was taking the time to sing something so beautiful and with so much meaning to him, and at that moment, he could’ve been singing it with a fucking ventilator in his mouth and a spoon shoved in his gullet, and Trevor _still_ would’ve thought it was the most wondrous thing he’d ever heard in his whole screwed up life.

It was only when they stopped did he realize he’d been staring in awe, and when he looked at his surroundings, he noticed they were in Harmony at the Motor, and suddenly he felt like that blushing schoolgirl again. “Uh, why the fuck are we here?” he asked, playing with the hem of his dress as he watched Michael hop out of his seat and slam the door. 

Michael walked around to Trevor’s side and opened the door with a hint of a smirk. “Old memories,” he answered cryptically before he bounded off for the night clerk, and in that instant, Trevor could see him as he’d been when he was younger, back in his glory days with girls hanging off any body part they could get ahold of and guys patting his ass, and _goddamn_ , what he wouldn’t give to pat his ass right about now--

“Trevor?”

Michael’s hand was out before him, and he had a questioning stare on his face.

“Oh,” Trevor coughed anxiously. “Right.”

They walked toward the room with Michael remarking about how he’d managed to get lucky number 7 just like back in the old days, and something kept creeping into Trevor’s head in an unsettling sort of way, pushing at him, like it all felt painstakingly familiar, but the warm buzz from the alcohol kept dragging his brain into a constant steady lull now, so every time he’d feel panic start to set it, he’d remember that he couldn’t be bothered to care anymore. 

But when they entered lucky number 7, it hit him like a ton of bricks the moment Michael spun him around and thrust his tongue into his mouth and grabbed his ass, pulling him to his deliciously warm and inviting body. 

His brain felt like it was alive and on fire afterward, and he pushed off Michael, falling to the floor with all of the grace of a newborn deer. Panting and so very much horny, he grumbled, “What the fuck are you doing?”

Michael pulled him off the floor and laid him back on the dingy bed. “And why the fuck are you playing hard to get all of the sudden?”

“I...you...just because I tell you I love you doesn’t mean, ‘Hey, since Amanda’s not putting out…,’” Trevor shouted back. “Fuck you for fucking with my feelings yet again, you asshole!”

Before he could strike back at Michael though, two meaty palms grasped his shoulders gently, grabbing and holding him in place. “Trev...no, that’s...that’s not what I meant. I’m sorry, OK? I just...this is all confusing, all right?” He looked at Trevor, fear plain as day on his face. “I have these feelings, these dreams...and I know they aren’t bullshit, I _swear_ they aren’t, but sometimes, I think I’m crazy, and everyone from my old psychiatrist down to Amanda has insisted that it’s all in my head, but then you told me...you said you loved me, and it all came rushing back.”

Trevor closed his eyes and tried to will himself the fuck away. Jesus Christ, he’d been found out, Mikey was going to be mad, and fuck, _who_ would blame him? 

All he’d ever wanted was someone to love him as he was. Why did he ever have to go and have such a stupid damn thing as hope?

His body started to quiver and quake, and big fat tears came unwillingly. He cried what he deemed his _ugly bitch wail_ which was a salty snotty mess, and he didn’t even care who saw or laughed or what. He was beyond caring at this point. The only thing he did care about was that his cardigan and dress were going to get ruined, so he tried to stop but failed spectacularly at that. 

What surprised him was when Michael hugged him close and whispered in his ear, “We...we’ve done this all before, haven’t we?” Trevor could only nod his head miserably. “I...I think I remember, but why did we stop?”

“B-because I’m not supposed to love my best friend like that,” he hiccupped and looked away. “Because it was getting h-h-harder to s-stop.”

Michael placed a kiss right under his ear, and Trevor felt himself almost shoot off the bed. “What about what I’d wanted? Did you ever ask me?” Michael chided.

It felt like he’d swallowed the sun and shit it straight out his ass again. “Y-you...what?”

Flutterings of kisses lined his neck like some sort of fucked up butterfly serenade, and it was the best thing he’d ever felt as he sighed into it. “I know you, T,” Michael laughed softly, “better than you know yourself sometimes. I bet you thought I didn’t know what Breakfast At Tiffany’s was.”

Jesus _Kee-rist_ , he was never going to live _that_ shit down, but he was still having trouble processing that Michael could ever want some ragged bitter asshole like him, and maybe he always would have some trouble dealing with that. “I don’t fucking get it...why me?”

“Why not?” Michael pulled off the cardigan and laid it aside with the utmost care, but Trevor was impatient. Trevor was a bundle of goddamn nerves that couldn’t wait any longer, and even though he loved that dress with his whole heart, it would live even if it landed in a heap on the carpet.

And that was exactly how it had landed, along with Michael’s clothes, all in one disheveled pile.

Michael stared down at the last bit of decency covering Mother Philip’s little boy’s naughty bits and grinned so widely and so darkly, he could give the Devil a run for his money. “Really, T? You got a thing for frilly pink things all of the sudden?”

Trevor gulped and ducked his head shyly. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Michael loomed over him cockily. “What I’d like to know is if your mouth still feels as good as my dreams remember.”

As Trevor nervously reached out for him, he felt like that same shy boy he’d been ages ago when he kissed him on the cheek and whispered in his ear, “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

* * *

And in the wee hours of the morning, as the dawn peeked out from behind the ratty curtains of the old dusty motel window in lucky number 7, sunbeams kissed the skin of two new old lovers as they held each other tenderly, and the other one whispered, “I’ve always loved you, too, Trevor,” while half-asleep.


End file.
